Kitchen Garden Forum

Been pestered for a few years now with carrot fly, read recently that if you put a bag of stinging nettles in a barrel, leave for a couple of weeks, then water the carrots with the infusion, this will deter the carrot fly. Well I am doing this, I don't know about the carrot fly, but by golly does it pen & ink.[stink] Will let you know if it is a success.

I dont know about detering carrot fly but I heard that it makes a good organic feed for plants, but yes it does stink, last year my next door plot person did it and every evening when he was watering the place stunk to high heaven. He's not there this year....

The stinging nettle brew is a complete and utter flop. The pesky carrot flies are thriving on the brew. OH well, back to the drawing board.

I reckon the only way to keep carrot flies off the carrots is to keep them covered with fleece or enviromesh.

I've used enviromesh but you have to uncover to harvest/weed/thin and i found it too much of a faff So i've grown them the past two years in raised bed(approx 2' high)and they've been unaffected Iknow some of the more experienced on this forum say the flies fly as high as any other but it works for me

macmac. Thank-you for using imperial measurements, never could get on with metric, though no:1 son tells me it is so easy once mastered.

Hi Shallotman I work on the priniple that the ruler the carrot fly keeps in his back pocket (to check he's not too high) is still imperial

Shallot Man wrote: Thank-you for using imperial measurements, never could get on with metric, though no:1 son tells me it is so easy once mastered.

Hi Shallotman

No 1 son's quite right; it's much easier multiplying 10 by 10 by 10 etc than multiplying/dividing by 12 (pence/shillings, or inches/feet), 3 (6/8d - £1, or feet/ yards), 1760 (yards/miles, and all that other stuff I must have spent years as a child having drummed into me

Mind you, I still have a 12 inch bodily part I use for measuring out in the garden - I still call it a foot (one on the end of each leg) and refuse to call it a 30ish centimetre

The carrots that we grow courtesy of the mesh makes any amount of faffing worthwhile.

I defy you to stack 12 one pennies on edge on top of each other - bring back the threepenny bit!

Geoff wrote: bring back the threepenny bit!

Dear Geoff
Your word is my command



Was stacking in the mind of the designers? After all, you couldn't stack these on end

Whilst on the subject of carrot fly I know that I have raised this subject before but I feel that I have not had a convincing answer . My question is that commercial growers grow carrots in the open field without nets so the conclusion is that they are able to spray to prevent carrot fly damage. My question is why is this spray not available to the general growing public. It seems that it is not a level playing field and what possible harm would making the spray available to the likes of you and I If it is so readily used by the farmers. If available it would make carrot growing a pleasure and not a risky chore if we could have this spray
Brenjon

Brenjon. I agree with you, the carrots on sale in supermarkets etc show no signs of carrot fly.

Brenjon, I fear Brussels may be to blame for us not having the spray that farmers use against carrot fly. As members of the public we are deemed not to be trustworthy to be let loose with these chemicals. Farmers on the other hand will have read all the instructions and will be wearing full body suit protective outfit thingies.
Having said that, was there ever a chemical control for carrot fly that was available to gardeners?
As an alternative, have you tried the carrot fly resistant carrots? They always seem to work for me and the flavour I think is good.